Total pages in book: 202
Estimated words: 193561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 968(@200wpm)___ 774(@250wpm)___ 645(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 968(@200wpm)___ 774(@250wpm)___ 645(@300wpm)
Like Greyson is so much larger than I am, his wolf is larger than my wolf and I feel like both my forms are suddenly so protected, so safe. Never safer.
“Yeah,” he whispers as he stills on top of me for a long moment. Now he’s kissing my neck on the sensitive place where he marked me, touching his lips to the ridge of my ear. He works his way down my back by dotting kisses down to the base of my spine, pulling shivers and goosebumps from me.
My eyes bolt wide open as Greyson sinks his teeth into my right butt cheek. Hard.
I squeak and say, “Ouch!”
“You won’t be taking off on your mate again, will you, Wife?” he asks, then presses his lips there to ease the sting.
I swallow hard. And I say nothing. Not only because I don’t know what to say, but also because I can’t even speak.
I’m liquid. Goo. Sleepy Stacy Goo.
He presses another soft kiss on the spot he just bit before blankets are put on top of me as he snuggles in, draping an arm around me, then rearranging me so that my back is pressed to his front. His other arm slides under me so now he’s spooning me while holding me, my head on his bicep. A faint, gentle vibration slides through me.
What is that? Oh. I know what it is. I forgot… I heard an alpha purrs for his fated mate to comfort her.
My heart swells as a memory seems to unlock. I don’t know how long ago it was, and I can’t see their faces in my mind, but it dances around the edge of my memories. He used to hold her and make that sound. And she looked so happy. So at peace. And watching them made me feel like that, too. I was young. Very young. I think they were my grandparents. My late mother’s folks.
Greyson is doing this as a gift for me. Tears spring up in my eyes and I swallow down a giant lump of relieved emotion as this reality settles in and his purr gets louder. He kisses my shoulder.
I lean into the feeling, giving into it, unable to think of anything other than how utterly weird and wonderful it is to feel this gooey and good. The way a hot bath feels after a hard day. No, better than that. The way it feels sitting by the wood stove when it’s raining out and you don’t need to go out there because you’re enjoying a good book with no chores left to do today. Actually, even better than that. The way warm chocolate chip cookies feel as they melt into your tongue. Yes, like that. All that. Warm chocolate chip cookies after a hot bath in front of a roaring fire with nothing to do but cuddle under a soft blanket that smells good.
My eyes drift closed. Maybe the things Aphra said to me are true. Maybe I am the key to helping my crumbling pack because of who I’m fated to. Greyson Blackwood. Could it be that I’ve found someone who… even though he has no ties to Silver Hills… might come to care enough about me to help me help my pack get out from under Wyatt’s heel? Up on their own four feet?
Something settles in me knowing that I’m not just the sister of the alpha Wyatt Meadows, a piece of his currency to be traded at his whim. I’m now Stacy, mated to Greyson Blackwood, an extraordinarily strong alpha of the famous Arcana Falls shifter council. One who’s not only an extra-alpha alpha – he’s also a warlock. And he’s kind. He’s strong but gentle. He’s capable of pulling sensations from my body that I’ve never felt. That I want more of. And this house, this village, this… this day did not go how I expected it to go. I’m so glad I failed at killing Tyson Savage.
I could become part of his pack. A pack I’d been tasked with helping to dismantle. A pack that Wyatt will continue to try to destroy. If not for the gentle vibrations of Greyson’s purring lulling me to sleep, I know I’d be in absolute panic-mode right now. Because things could get very messy. For all of us.
But maybe it’s his gentle purring, the heat enveloping me, and his strong arms around me that has me thinking that maybe it’s all going to be okay. Could it be that fate wants it all to happen? That all this was meant to happen just like this?
8
Grey
She’s asleep, out entirely, spooned by me and a perfect fit. I lay awake beside her for a long time, caressing her skin, dusting kisses along her shoulder and throat as she sleeps, inhaling the scent of her skin, finger-combing her mass of dark hair back so I can admire the mark I’ve put on her throat while feeling the soft, wavy strands.